8 Month old Hugel beds overflowing water

I put in a bunch of hugel beds at our new datmstead last fall. The ground is solid clay. Each bed was built on a 2 foot deep solid clay pit. Each was filled with logs, branches old lumber wood mulch. The wood was generally 1 to 2 feet above ground. I then filled each pit with water. I added wood mulch a little compost of leaves and layered in clay to buid up the mounds. My drip system sends water in and the beds overflowing onto the paths. But the tops of the mounds stay too dry and the plants arent doing well without hand watering. Is this a new bed problem that will become less an issue next year? Or do i need to redo the mound dirt so there is less clay?

Maybe some picture might help tell what is going on.  

New beds take time for the wood to start decomposing.  

Hand watering sound good to me.

If the water is overflowing on the pathways maybe cut back to watering less more frequently.

It takes a while for the hugel to work like it's supposed to.  I think a lot depends on your weather as well. I live in a hot dry climate, and mine never even reduced water needs. The only thing that helped me was to use ollas., and make little retaining mounds around the plants, so the water would go down to the roots instead of down the slope.
I hope you figure it out. I ended up removing mine when the gophers invaded there was no point fighting it any more. I still think it's an amazing way to grow, and use the hugel beet style in all my beds.
Good luck to you.

Where folks live is a big consideration.  Too hot, too old, think how long it take wood to decompose under those conditions.

Anne Miller wrote:Maybe some picture might help tell what is going on.  

New beds take time for the wood to start decomposing.  

Hand watering sound good to me.

If the water is overflowing on the pathways maybe cut back to watering less more frequently.

I turned off the drip system. It took three days to dry out around the beds. Had to hand water to keep things alive. Just turned water back on but at lower durations. We’ll see. It is poking holes in 95 DegF here with almost no rain.